Designed by John Ronan AIA, the Poetry Foundation is located in a corner lot in West Superior and North Dearborn streets in Near North Side, Chicago. At first glance, the building seems like a solid volume, with its main façades aligned with the street frontage.

However, the building’s skin — primarily built in perforated metal — encloses an interior garden, designed by Doug Reed, that allows the main spaces to overlook the vegetated space through a fully glazed curtain wall that sets back from the street line. Therefore, the garden serves as a transitional space that guards the interior spaces from the street providing a spatial sequence like not to many contemporary buildings.

Despite being surrounded by the metal veil, the garden is visible from the sidewalk inviting visitors to enter freely from the site’s corner. Although trees populate almost entirely the open space, they are carefully placed to provide a path leading to the main entrance of the Foundation.

Although I visited the building on a Sunday, I experienced the spatial sequence of the garden, which gives the building a fascinating atmosphere. In retrospect, the courtyard of this compact urban building (completely aware of the difference in scale and culture) reminds of the Orange tree courtyard of the Great Mosque of Córdoba which offers itself as an oasis for wanderers, artists, and poets to shelter from the harshness of the surrounding context.

The following drawings are my attempt to illustrate and make sense of the spatial sequence of the Poetry Foundation’s garden.

This is a follow up on our trip to Italy and France last summer where we got the chance to visit the cultural complex at Firminy-Vert. Here are a few quick sketches made on site; a few trying to capture the feeling of the interior space.

The Klumb house, previously known as el Rancho Cody, was acquired by Henry Klumb in 1947. The house belonged to José Ramón Latimer and his wife Esther C. Cody who rented out rooms. In 1949 Klumb remodel the structure which was a traditional pitched-roof wood structure raised from the terrain with a surrounding balcony that opened directly towards the outside.

The intervention instead of consisting of additions to the original layout was more about subtraction as if adhering to Mies’ “less is more” predicament. Klumb eliminated — almost entirely — the enclosing walls to allow continuity between the public spaces of the house and the veranda. Thus, the living room (in the front) and the dinning room (at the back) — maintaining the original layout — were left completely open. The bedrooms remained partially enclosed and large operable pivoting windows allowed for privacy while allowing cross ventilation and when opened visual and physical connection with the balcony.

Klumb, his wife Else and their two children Peter and Richard lived in the house until 1984 when Klumb and Else died as a result of a car accident.

After their death, the house was acquired by the University of Puerto Rico in 1986, but was left abandoned to its current state of deterioration. In 1997 it was included as a Regional Monument in the National Register of Historic Places and in 2012 it was elevated to the status of National Monument by the same entity. In 2014 the house was included in the World Monuments Watch and in March Comité Casa Klumb was created to aid at the restoration of the structure.

Here are a few drawings I made during a visit to the Casa Klumb organized by the committee as part of a series of activities aimed at raising awareness of the house condition and its future restoration.

Designed in 1963 by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, Jorge Campuzano and Rafael Mijares, it is an impressive example of modern architecture.

The main courtyard is partially covered by a roof (know as “el paraguas”) suspended by a single pillar around which splashes an artificial cascade. The halls are ringed by gardens, many of which contain outdoor sculptures.